More relevant than at first glance

Metal’s greatest concept LP

The members of Dark Angel are (clockwise starting with the guy in the middle): Eric Meyer (a lead/rhythm guitarist), Brett Eriksen (ditto), Gene Hoglan (the drummer), Mike Gonzalez (the bassist) and Ron Rinehart – the sole voice (no group vocals or double tracking harmonies on this album). This 1991 line-up may have inspired the non-linear storytelling style of Quentin Tarantino.

There’s a song, Psychosexuality, which foreshadows Pulp Fiction by having an intro being a cover of Misirlou. The incorporation of Misirlou into the band’s song is relevant due to the theme of a man who wants to abduct an attractive woman. When reassembled for narrative purposes, the progressive album’s tracklist is the story of how a boy grows up to become a menacing male…

1) A Subtle Induction: The boy is subjected to a 1942 family film that has a subliminal influence on his subconscious. Lyrically, the last bridge contains initials which indicate the film is Bambi (this information came from the bassist who once posted a comment on a YouTube upload).

2) The New Priesthood: The boy has grown to be a typical teenager who questions the sanctity of religion.

3) Time Does Not Heal: He can’t forget the abuse which he received as a child.

4) Psychosexuality: As a twentysomething, he becomes demented from the addiction to porn that he has been fostering since he was a teen. The lust that he harbours for sex workers can’t quench his thirst or quell his hunger. It’s because of subjection to gang crime and snuff movies that he has developed a bloodlust. He has become a misanthrope to mainstream society.

5) Act of Contrition: He becomes obsessed with a young woman to the point of stalking her and kidnapping her.

6) Sensory Deprivation: The woman, a university student, is tortured by him. The only positive is that she’s still being fed.

7) An Ancient Inherited Shame: He commits the cardinal sin of raping her. After being medically treated, she wants to avenge herself.

8) Pain’s Invention, Madness: He is imprisoned and declared insane enough to be put in the loony bin. To the horror of no-one, he is lobotomized. However, he is masochistic as well as sadistic. Therefore, his Hell has become his Heaven.

9) Trauma and Catharsis: The rape victim, now middle-aged, struggles to move on with her life. Her victim status has left her ostracized from society. When she was younger, she became a porn star so as to lessen the memory of the rape. She engaged in a variety of self-harming.

In issue 336 of Kerrang, Gene talked about A Subtle Induction (the issue was released in April of 1991): “Have you seenBambi yet? Admittedly, it’s one of the more frivolous concepts on the album. Say what you will, that movie gives kids nightmares! Imagine watching your mother get killed, your home and your neighbourhood burnt down then you, plus your friends, become homeless outcasts! Bambi has all those weird friends – Thumper lives to create turbulence, but Flower is a weirdo who’s either gay or androgynous. Some nice kid’s movie, eh? I live to twist stuff like that around.”

The initials of the third verse spell Bambi. Gene used to write short stories. Hell, he even describes his lyrics as short stories. Dan Spitz said the same thing about Anthrax’s Scott Ian. Coincidentally, Gene once boasted that Darkness Descends was a forerunner to Anthrax writing a song about Judge Dredd. Gene’s song is about issue #3. Back to Time Does Not Heal, he would eventually be critically acclaimed by various feminist groups for writing the anti-rape song.

The origin of the song was that looked around and saw how many bands were writing songs from the perspective of the rapist. In his view, they were instigating fans to commit rape. The most prominent example is Anal Lust by Exhorder. The lyrics were so obscene that they couldn’t be printed on the vinyl sleeve. Vio-lence wrote two sexually violent songs which were banned from their second album (Oppressing the Masses) before becoming available on their EP (their final record was titled Torture Tactics).

Gene continues with his explanation of writing the anti-rape song: “It was time to take it from the other person’s perspective. It was educational for me to write. About halfway through it, I thoughtWait! Is this coming out ignorant?So I went about asking a few friends of mine – women who I was close to who had either been raped or molested and how they dealt with it. Their input helped end the song on a positive yet truthful note about overcoming the horror of rape. If the song is ignorant in any way, I apologize because it was a man who wrote it. Maybe it’ll make people pause and force them to open their eyes a bit wider. That might be a nice change for some sweaty 14-year-old thrasher.”

Coincidentally, this reminds me of what Erasure’s Andy Bell had to say in a 2014 episode of The Wright Stuff (a London-based debate show where he was asked to explain why he was at the Kerrang award show): “I find that the heavy rock people are more friendly than the regular pop people.”

Back to Gene, he talks about the thinking process behind his favourite song from Dark Angel’s last album of the twentieth century: “Let’s face it – everyone is a misogynist once they break up with their old lady. You might love your girlfriend, you might (in a fit of anger) tell herDon’t you think of leaving me! But, in the back of your head, you’re holding back the part which goes …orI’ll kill you! That’s actually something that we deal with onAct of Contrition.”

Gene talks about what compelled (or rather repelled) him to pen Psychosexuality:

“In 1990, I kept my eyes open – just observing a lot of stuff. We always tended to get stuck playing the red light districts of towns, so you’ll find a lot of human extremities getting literally thrust in your face. If you walk into a pornography store in Amsterdam, you’re going to find a lot more than PC porn – animal movies, pain movies and kiddie porn. It’s a real study in human brutality. Extremes are being tested now more than ever. The closest that I’ve ever come to any of this is carving things into my arm. Slitting my penis in two? I don’t know. I’m kind of attached to it.”

Truth be told, it’s a big shame that he never wrote a novel. If he sent short stories to magazines like Marilyn Manson did in his pre-fame era, it would’ve been the launch pad to himself being the most famous author in the world of metal. I would like to conclude by saying that Time Does Not Heal is technically Dark Angel’s third album instead of their fourth. We Have Arrived is actually an EP in that it has 7 songs and is 33 minutes long.